Average U.S. iPhone User Spent $79 on Apps Last Year

As a developer the many commenters here that are proud to not spend any money on apps make me sad. This is at the same time as everybody complains about ads and subscriptions.

Well, no ****, if people buy a thousand dollar phone and then spend no money on quality applications it’s no surprise things rot.
 
bbeagle said:
Included in the averages are people who subscribed to Netflix through iTunes long ago. Those people are paying $12 x 12 = $144 a year on 'apps'.
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I only spent money on Netflix, but cancelled that subscription so that netflix gets all the fees.
apart from that I spend almost $0 most years.
 
Haven't spent a dime on apps in 5 years maybe? I have maybe 50-60 apps and only use 5 regularly (not counting stock Apple apps)
 
joshwenke said:
I feel so proud that I've spent $0 on in-app purchases unless it was to support a developer I like. IAPs are becoming worse while big companies are making millions.
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No one's forcing you to buy anything. I'd say I spent around £200 ($250 USD) on apps over the last 12 months. One app alone was £70 for a 12 month sub.

I think people need to get over themselves a bit. Apps cost money to develop and developers have bills to pay. Some people coast through life being complete cheapskates as they believe everything should be at zero cost. I'll quite happily support developers of apps that I find useful. I'll also pay to remove ads on ANY app I use as it's my way of throwing a little money the developers way. Some charge, £0.99, others £10 or more, it doesn't matter.
 
When the Appstore was introduced, I bought many games via the app store. Apple was clearly targetting the iPad Touch, iPhone as a handheld games console. Remember the Monkeyball demo? I was sold, bought lots of Capcom, Sega games. Annoyingly, they either don't get updated or are removed from the app store. I lost lots of games, so do not spend £0 anymore. I have never bought a single IAP.

2013 £0
2014 £0
2015 £0
2016 £0
2017 £0
2018 £0

Shame really. I don't want to pay for a game that will be redundant in a few years.
 
honglong1976 said:
When the Appstore was introduced, I bought many games via the app store. Apple was clearly targetting the iPad Touch, iPhone as a handheld games console. Remember the Monkeyball demo? I was sold, bought lots of Capcom, Sega games. Annoyingly, they either don't get updated or are removed from the app store. I lost lots of games, so do not spend £0 anymore. I have never bought a single IAP.

2013 £0
2014 £0
2015 £0
2016 £0
2017 £0
2018 £0

Shame really. I don't want to pay for a game that will be redundant in a few years.
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If you want more games, there's no better way to signal that than by paying for them. iOS is my favorite entertainment platform, bar none. My philosophy is, if something is worth my time, it deserves my money as well.
 
Michael383 said:
Didn't think the average would be that high. I didn't spend any money on iPhone apps last year.
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If Apple would include the standard deviation or any other statistical dispersion it would be interesting. No, I don't expect that to happen, they are on a less info phase, not on a more info phase.

I few years ago I spent a reasonable amount, particularly on some productivity apps (when I was trying to use the iPad as something more than the Youtube/Netflix/Email thing it is) and on point and click classical adventures (Grim Fandango will always be the best). Nowadays I don't spent a lot or anything, most of my apps are services (parking, banking, streaming, well, lots of "ings") and I refuse to support P2W games.

Flojomojo said:
If you want more games, there's no better way to signal that than by paying for them. iOS is my favorite entertainment platform, bar none. My philosophy is, if something is worth my time, it deserves my money as well.
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I did plenty of signalling, I bought all types of classical games that had special iOS versions (point and click adventures work great with touch, even better than mouse) and I bought several new well thought out games (Monument Valley style) and ended up here in the IAP pseudo F2P universe we are now.

I believe a lot is Apple's fault, their extortion, I mean 30% rate, their buy once update forever for free, no demo or way to try, etc... contributes to the peanuts 99 cents apps. But, that ship has sailed and the App Store is broken and I doubt It will ever fix itself.
 
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I spent 0$ also. I'd like to apologize to others for having to contribute more than $79 to make up for me failing to meet my expected share. I guess I'm not a 'team' player.
 
There is very little reason to spend on Apps... most of them are <$10 and usually once you buy an app or service you keep using it forever like Evernote, Twitter, 1Password...etc
Its not like there is a new app that you will buy and learn how to use it every 3 months...

Games are a different beast...
 
rcooked said:
Interesting. My volume of purchases is down, as I pay for quality I will use. I also avoid subscriptions like the plague - my fear is more of a shift to this model.

Be interesting to watch.
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It is the best way to make all customers repeat customers
 
yoz-y said:
As a developer the many commenters here that are proud to not spend any money on apps make me sad. This is at the same time as everybody complains about ads and subscriptions.

Well, no ****, if people buy a thousand dollar phone and then spend no money on quality applications it’s no surprise things rot.
Click to expand...
I personally don't buy apps because 99% of time I spend with iOS device is in Safari. I'm not proud of it or anything, it' just a fact.
 
I spent like 70 bucks, but 50% on that was one single app.

Much of the spending growth came from mobile gaming, with 56 percent of the $79 total average attributed to App Store games.
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I'd really like statistics on that. As per my observation, 90% of the earnings of F2P games come from 10% of their playerbase. The remaining 90% spend almost nothing.
Anyway, I'd gladly spend 60 bucks on an iPad port of Anno 1602 (the screen resolution would match perfectly!) than all this F2P cancer... (exemptions apply)
 
OK, I'll play.

I've spent money on apps over the years in the form of outright purchases and in-app transactions.

Here are a few that I remember off the top of my head.

iSmoothRun - $4 or $5 one-time fee. Better running app than Nike or the Stock app
RunGap - $2/3 months a few times to unlock exporting data feature
GolfStar - $100 or so over a few years to get VIP access. Played this game for over 3 years and had lots of fun. To me, worth the $30/year, especially considering that Playstation games back in the 90's cost $40 to $50 per title and couldn't hold my interest for 3 months.
PacMac 256 - $? can't remember what that app cost to unlock the unlimited credits. Certainly less than $10. Still play that game every so often.
MarioRun - $10. Don't play this one any more, but it was fun for a few months. I paid more as a vote to support one-time fee apps vs. subscription and F2P,P2W type games.

So over the course of about 5 years, I've spent around $125 on apps. That's about $25/year and sounds about right for my usage (and my memory).
 
I have not added any apps to my phone since the App Store was removed from iTunes. Searching for apps on a tiny iPhone screen is just not worth the effort.
 
an active Game of War player can spend $10,000.00+ in year no problem. I am embarrassed to say I blew about $7000 on that game in a year and I was nowhere near the top.
 
Zenithal said:
I spent $10 just this year alone (40 day) on a few apps in the Play Store.
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And this is one of the many reasons why some countries are taking a stern look at loot boxes. They're no better than gambling.
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Sadly, I doubt Apple is going to crack this down when considering that they get a cut of these purchases.
 
I'm curious if this report includes Netflix and Hulu subscriptions billed through iTunes.

I know I purchased Things 3 and Fantastical 2 late last year. But other than my Netflix and Hulu subscriptions via iTunes, I don't spend a ton on apps - especially when I have nor play any games on any of my iDevices.
 
dilbert99 said:
I only spent money on Netflix, but cancelled that subscription so that netflix gets all the fees.
apart from that I spend almost $0 most years.
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While that's admirable to give the Netflix corporation more money.... I get iTunes gift cards on sale for 20% off throughout the year. This saves me about $2 on my Netflix bill - over $24 a year.

I care about my money more than Netflix's.
 
I'm definitely responsible for a few hundred myself. Between 1 game I do purchase in-apps for, Apple Books, Apple Music family sub, iCloud storage and the occasional game on sale I snag. I tend to wait for Black Friday or other sales to snag App Store cards to save a few bucks on purchases I'll make anyhow.
 
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